"Performance artist and provocateur, Randall Garrett, is one of the
unsung heroes of the Dallas art scene, providing opportunity and chance
to artists who are looking for first opportunities. Garrett’s work, a scrappy composition of selfies and digital portraits
in the main room, accompanied by a planned performance opening night,
“Graveyard Swag,” added to the abstraction of a coherent manifesto to
“what” exactly is burning and “who” is holding the torch. Incorporating
ritual, spiritualism, and the history of storytelling, Garrett’s
performance and installation told the 1,000 year old story of sin, death
and rebirth."

Sitting on the fire escape he looks down, eight floors to
the ground below. Concrete, stone and steel, the city, tough and
relentless, a lighted neon cross blaring "Jesus Saves" from the street
front mission, car horns shouting as traffic rushes to the stoplight,
people hurrying along the walk.

Slowly he takes a drag from the cigarillo, the warmth and
fire pulling into his lungs. Closing his eyes, he feels the smoke inside
balancing out the cool blasts of wind buffeting them high up the city's
side. He feels himself falling into a dream now, a place where peace
washes over him, of soft grasses and flowing water under a canopy of
trees.

She climbs through the window and sits beside him there on
the balcony. Forgetting their suffering for a moment she says, "this is
kind of nice" and he opens his eyes, looking up at the softness of the
sky and beyond. Pouring a sangria over the ice in the plastic cups she
hands him one. "To nice" he says, and tips his cup into hers.

performance photos by Scott McDaniel

"Purgatorio"

Down, down he trudged, hugging the wall of the narrow stone
staircase, the abyss looming just beyond. Through thick smoke, exhaust
mixed with the tinge of human sweat and rotting waste, the crush of
bodies pushing against him, some moving upward, others down, eyes
averted each in their own self-made inferno.

A few more steps and there
he lost his balance.

Turning in the air as he fell, it all came to him, every
suffering he had inflicted on these souls around him, both loved and
unloved, all of them. Falling, only a moment yet interminable, he knew
it would hurt, and then he hit bottom. Blackness, and all around a fog,
lying there on the mix of footsteps and grime.

It was then she came to him, a movement so slight, a gentle
touch in this blindness. Grasping, lunging, lost in the foul air he
felt himself lifted up and against a firm shoulder and the softness of
her skin. Lowering now, he moved in close, enveloped by her as blackness
closed in again.

performance video projection stills

"Destroy This Temple"

Passed out, feverish for days he lay among the rubble.
dishevelled piles of stones around him as though burial mounds from some
forgotten war. Eyes convulsing, he dreamt in rapid fire sequence, image
upon image, travelling somewhere rapidly, never at rest, never at
peace.

A sound among the ruins and he awoke, it seemed into yet
another layer of perception. In the shadows, she was there, crouched and
slinking towards him. She crawled the last few feet, drew near and
mounted him furiously. Plunging into him with a vengeance unrestrained,
she leaned in close, as though to steal his breath away. He felt relief
give way to fear and panic, as the thrusts turned to violence and
obscenity.

Now others came upon them in the darkness, lovers from past
lives, themselves in various guises. They joined in, forming a writhing
mound among the fallen stones. All the bodies they had ravaged from
here to eternity, flailing away at every orifice, as flesh began to tear
and blood mixed with come and sweat. He mocked her and turned to move
away, but was pulled back into the fray.

Finishing now, they kicked her back and onto him. He
screamed yet nothing came out, the weight of those around and on them
having expunged the air from his lungs. The mass of flesh continued to
move for a time. Some retched now, and gradually all turned back to
silence.

Some time later, he began to scratch and claw his way out
from under the pile of bodies. Bruised and shaken, his blood mixed with
semen, bile and earth, all congealed into a crust upon him. Slowly
regaining his senses, he began to break off and pull away chunks of the
putrid mud from his skin.

He stumbled now to the quarry, grabbing the last of the
kerosene and turned back to the mound of bodies. Approaching, he saw her
crawl out and away into the darkness. Without hesitation, he flung the
kerosene onto the remnant, struck a match and threw it onto the pile.

A ball of flames rose up and with the dry blast of a
furnace, violently threw him back and onto the ground. Burning flesh and
bone transformed to huge chunks of ash and sparks as they lifted up
into the night sky. Scorched now, he threw the holy books, votives and
sacramentals that remained onto the pyre, turned and staggered away into
the night.

performance video projection stills

"Midsummer Stupa Dream (On Impermanence)"

The monks, in sand colored habits, seated themselves in
concentric rings rising up the inside of the beehive like structure. At
the base and looking up at them, the elder abbot, of indeterminate sex,
with a head of shaved stubble, began speaking of the glories of dying in
this way, of how nirvana awaited directly on the other side for those
who gave themselves willingly to it.

He knew that the only chance to survive was to sit near the
top of the hive, where a window afforded an escape if he could not hold
his breath. Finding his place, he sat and leaned with the others into a
fetal position. The last thing he saw before closing his eyes was the
shaved heads of row upon row of young male devotees. Then, the snakelike
hiss of gas as all faded to blackness.

In the dark he felt himself lifted up and outside the
temple, and stepping out from the darkness quickly stole up the hillside
the stupa was built into. By the flickering firelight he saw an old
monk directing bhikkus in the disposal of the bodies.

Walking through the aftermath, he pulled the cowl over his
face to avoid their gaze. Stepping into a room filled with scattered
bodies, he felt the energetic scurrying of a multitude of creatures:
ants, grasshoppers, crabs and the like, all devouring each other as they
swarmed on the parched ground.

Reaching down, he picked up a grasshopper, and watched as
it ate a tiny ant, even as it was being consumed by a much larger one.
The creatures began crawling on him and biting his hands and legs. He
brushed them away, but then became fascinated by the insistence of their
actions, and bevoming still, watched as they continued to swarm.

"Night into Day"

The night opens up under your wheels: black, empty and
infinite. A multitude of stars reaching up and out to forever, and
inward just as far. You feel your heart open too, like an orchid in the
darkness. And then Freddy Mercury, on your Ipod singing "Oh, won't you
take me home tonight", just as morning breaks in your rearview mirror.
Now colors gather on the horizon: orange, cyan, magenta, and chase the
night across the sky, the same as every morning, only this time you're
here to see it unfold. So you follow the colors too, as they lead you
back home.

"Devil Be Gone"

C'mon now, get down with the feeling,
C'mon now give in to the feeling,
Isolation, give in to the feeling,
Deprivation, give in to the feeling,
Desolation, give in to the feeling,
Revelation, give in to the feeling,
C'mon now, feeling what you're feeling,
C'mon now, you know what you're feeling,
C'mon now, you're not what you're feeling,
More than a feeling, more than a feeling, more than a feeling,
Devil be gone, devil disappear,
Devil be gone, devil disappear,
(repeat to fade)

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Referencing vintage horror film, Marcel Duchamp's Large Glass, and
ritual incantation, the performance is a broken down ceremony examining
the interplay between feminine and masculine energies as embodied in the
archetypes of bride and groom.

photos (left and right) by Scott McDaniel, video still (center) by Dwayne Carter

Vows are exchanged to the sound
of bells, mantras, lightning crashing and dreamlike video projections.
The newlywed couple explores the duality of matter by sacrificing their
bodies to the alchemy and minefield of gender archetypes and cult
classic caste roles.

photos (left) by Scott McDaniel, (center and right) by Dwayne Carter

Set amidst altars evoking domesticity: the
kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, the couple play out scenes of
longing, pursuit, violence and transformation.

Friday, November 7, 2014

Election update (Ferguson) same as it ever was (Monsanto) nothing to see here (Corrections Corporation of America) move along (1033 Program) bought and paid for (NSA) let freedom ring edition, not today but someday we can say a new day is dawning brothers and sisters, hallelujah.Deluge Refuge (Strays on the Street)Night sets in hot and sweaty as the band goes on and people sway rhythmically in the blacklit warehouse. Channeling her best sacred woman style, she glances around, checks her phone and steps out on the street, just as the weather turns, wind picking up and heavy drops begin to fall. Catching his eye there on the sidewalk she says, "I need a change outta these platforms, let's go back to the car for my flip flops".

Walking close now down the broken sidewalk, she begins to fall and reaching out, he catches her and they huddle down as the skies open up, a torrent unleashed soaking them in waves of cold wetness. "Sacrifice!" she exclaims smiling, as they push into the driving rain, almost crawling now, soaked to the bone and stepping into and through the glistening fresh rainwater puddles. Shivering, he fumbles for his keys, and thinks about the stray dogs passing by earlier on the street, hoping they have a dry place to take refuge. Lightning crackles in the sky just above as he flings open the back door, and they dive in to escape the deluge.

"Krishna!" she laughs, and pulls off the soaked chadors as he leans forward from the backseat, across the console reaching down toward the front floorboard. "Where's that sweet playlist?", he muses, and finds the iPod, still on all fours, head down below the seat and ass sticking up toward her in back. Pushing play, a tender mantra kicks in: "Om Om Om, Sarwa Buddha Dakini Vajra Varani Vajra Virochana" he falls back next to her, and mesmerized they watch the sheets of rain pour down the windshield.

She pulls out her pipe and hands it to him, saying "I saved you the green" as he lights up, inhaling slowly pranayama style, holding it there in equilibrium. She takes a huge puff now and blowing the smoke out in a gray blue cloud, coughs as he chuckles inside. Reaching across her he pulls her faux fur coat on to warm up and leans over onto her shoulder, resting for a moment, then glances into her eyes as they move close and touch in a gentle kiss.Fucked Up Your Shit (and Your Sheets)Baby, I told you I would fuck up your sheets.You told me you would fuck up my shit, you didn't say anything about my sheets.You're right baby, I did tell you I would fuck up your shit,but I didn't say anything about your sheets.I said you better be careful or I will fuck up your shit,and you didn't listen to me, I told you.I did listen to you baby but you didn't say nothing about fucking up my sheets.Now you gone and fucked up my sheetsand I'm gonna have to do something about it.I did do something about it, I fucked up your shit… and your sheets.Maya on the Midway (Recognition Within the Dream)

Having begun their journey that evening with a visit to the mystical peacock, and observed the beauty of his integration of the many lineages of the bird kingdom into one magnificent and varied body, now they move on along the night path as it widens and people pass wide eyed and nearing the neon lighted entrance archway now where the lights and sounds grow exponentially more vivid. "There she is", he said. "What, baby?" "Maya", he offers up as they walk under the lighted arch spelled "MIDWAY".They wonder past throngs of party folk caught up in the carnival and sing to each other "Maya, you're so pretty. Maya, you're so empty. Maya, so enticing. Maya, so exciting. Maya, you're the bling bling. Maya, illusion of everything."

"Hey look, Prince!", she exclaims, and they run over to revel at the side show mural as his image stares down at them in all his gender ambiguous glory. "He's the god of the midway", she cries, "let's bask in his effulgence", as they pause briefly to reverence his image there, then continue on.And stopping before the enormous ferris wheel mandala he says, "Look baby, I told you I'd find the real dharma wheel, and here it is, just like I said... the Wheel of Right Turning."And as he speaks, it begins to turn, but not clockwise in the direction of his own turning hand, but the opposite way. She says, "you know why that is, right baby?" "No, why?" "Because everything in Maya is a reflection, a mirror image of the true reality".

They walk on, exchanging glances, he moves first ahead, then behind her, to her right, and then left, mingling in and through the crowd, winding all around the midway.Nearing the end now, as the lights began to fade, she says "What's that deity, the one that charms the other beings? Culu Cooley?""Cool cooley!", he replies, confused but intrigued at her question. "Cool cooley, cool cooley", it becomes his mantra. Then he realizes what she is saying. "Kurukula", he answers clearly, and their eyes lock in recognition.Pausing beneath the orbiting tower, they watch as it rises slowly and majestically upward, a lighted neon Shiva column into the sky, and he says, "Dream travelers can leave a mark to take them back to their dreams, did you know that?"

She looks deeply into his eyes once again, and he says, "I'm leaving a mark in this dream, so I can come back here to you. Do you know what it is?" "No, baby", she replies, staring intently into his eyes. "It's the look in your eyes right now, that's the mark I'm leaving in this dream".

Om Shanti (Protection Projection)

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti. She was surrounded in a world of ice, bright, sharp daggers of cold, the mountain behind Lord Shiva rising to the heavens as she sat in his crown. Lightning crashed and the ice broke all around her, rivers of icy cold waters, a raging torrent now flowing out from the mouth of the Ganges. The electrical discharges thundered all around him as he awoke into the liminal space of Brahma Muhurta, glancing to see her silhouette in the darkness.I will protect you. Closing his eyes, the apparitions appeared to him, an Arab in a red keffiyeh, a tall thin Indian in a grey pinstripe pimp suit. Seeing the menace in their eyes, he shook himself awake again, and began chanting above her, "Om Shanti Shanti Shanti, I will protect you and keep you safe, Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivayah, Om Namah Shivaya". He did this each time the wrathful entities appeared into his dream space.And keep you safe. Walking along the cracking ice, and following the emerging floodwaters heading downstream from Lord Shiva, she heard a sound coming from the bottom of an icy well. A powerful and subtle white snow lion followed her from a distance in protection. She crawled down into the well and found a young girl huddled there shivering from the cold.Om Namah Shivaya. He walked with her past the gang of white dudes in muscle shirts as they stood next to their hot rods in the parking lot. They leered at her as they passed by, and he turned, placing himself between them and her, staring and said "this is my strong black woman, back the fuck off", as their gazes lowered away from his.Om Namah Shivaya. She knelt down in the well, wrapping her arms around the girl, and covering her with holy texts to warm her, lifted the child up to stand and began to help her to climb out of the well. Lightning continued to crash moving outward and away from them now and across the wintry landscape.Om Namah Shivaya. He stood with her on a subway platform, where the trench coat wearing beast had tried to take her into the underworld once before. A man with a pistol appeared quietly at the far end of the platform as Ricardo engaged him holding a knife at the man's chest. They chased across the platform, as he stood before her ready to fight, until they exited and all became quiet.

Thunder continued to roll in the darkness, but far away now, and a heavy rain poured down, washing the earth in torrents as they lay there and night turned into morning. She turned toward him as he continued to chant and his eyes grew heavy as he gently fell asleep in her arms.Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.

Manifesto -- Pissing in the Wind

Artists,
writers, musicians, performers make your art, resist the prevailing
winds of commodification and revel in the freedom of your expression.
This is the surest form of protest, an open mic voice among the tidal
wave of apathy and conformist culture.

The Missing Shirt

Guy walks into a party. Hanging with friends, lounging languid on a sumptuous overstuffed bed. People mingling, painting their bodies in neon day-glo colors, externally transformed, but talking as though very much the same. Pulled in, he takes off his shirt and scarves, lets a friend paint him too, and feeling the spirit move, finds himself plunging into a brief shamanic journey, grabbing the hands of his other painted friends, and leading them on a wild run through the space.

They contort their bodies wildly, passing strangers in the hallway, themselves covered in paint, yet looking on wide eyed at such a breaking with decorum. Running, jumping, he and his friends scare the other party people into brief moments of recognition.

Now spent and the spell broken, he goes to retrieve his shirt and finds it missing. Looking all around, and wondering where could it be, or who might have taken it. Perturbed, looking across the room now, he sees a new acquaintance from earlier in the evening, wearing his missing shirt.

This was the same stranger turned friend that expressed fascination with the shirt at the start of the evening, who upon seeing the logo "MEXICO" told him stories of trips through the jungle, of the darkness thereof, of the unseen animals that howled in the trees, of the indigenous peoples there who spoke a language more ancient than the everyday Español, of the drug wars and how he was afraid to go back now.

He wondered what to do... should he let it go, or take back what belonged to him.

Driving home later, and slipping into bed he felt the familiar shirt brushing against his skin, and pulling it off, was taken back to the party scene, of rubbing the dried paint, bloodlike, from the bare skin on the back of his new acquaintance, there and on into the dark jungles and innumerable unseen beings passing through them, of the give and take and trusts exchanged as they collided there in the night.

A selection of artifacts and documentation from 15 years in
performance by Randall Garrett will go on view as a part of the Deep
Ellum Windows series on May 10th. Works on view will include performance paintings,
collage, sculpture, installation, and documentation in the form of
photography and video.

The Prisoner (2005)

The show will span the
period from Garrett's first performance, the techno and club influenced RXS persona of Last Dance (1999),
to the utilitarian Worker from Back Alley
Bodhisattvas (2003) to Bloom in the Ghetto (2007), and The Worker
(2013), the Prisoner from Diverging Roads (2005) and Libera Me (2006), and the more recent Temple
Dancer from Bardos of the Night (2014).

lt.: The Worker (2004) rt.: Last Dance (1999)

A video projection will
show documentation of several performances, and large scale and
sequential performance paintings from 2013 will also be on view.

I Don't Know How to Love Him (2001)

The
artist has had solo shows in Dallas, Houston, and Chicago, along with
group exhibitions in New York, Miami, Santa Fe, and Ft. Worth. He is
currently the gallery director at El Centro College in Dallas, after
directing the gallery at Richland College (1998-2009) and was the
founder and director of Plush Gallery (2000-2012).

About Me

"artist, paisano, and archaic wondering soul...in search of beauty among the trash heaps of modern life."
I am an artist, writer, and curator working in performance, installation, video, and sound. Check out my art here:
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